In praise of ... Westminster Abbey

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Friday 10 July 2009

In the article below, we said legend held that Saint Peter himself was present at its creation. In fact that story concerns an earlier church believed to have been built on the site in the seventh century: Westminster Abbey was not consecrated until 1065.

The mists of time are thicker around Westminster Abbey than any other building in England. Even disregarding the legend that St Peter himself was present at its creation, it stretches back more than a millennium. Rebuilt and refashioned by monarchs from Edward the Confessor on, it is a mix of styles with spots of beauty, such as the Lady Chapel. But architecture is not the main point; that is the direct connection to ancient times, a product of non-stop use at the heart of national life - continuity makes it stand out among the world's antiquities. Every English monarch crowned since 1066 has been crowned here. Bundled away in the basement and elsewhere are, among others, Chaucer, Henry V and Gladstone - the medieval poet and the victor of Agincourt having been laid to rest in the Abbey's middle age, while the Grand Old Man of Victorian politics is a decidedly new acquisition. Good Queen Bess is here too, along with the cousin she beheaded: Mary Queen of Scots' two-parted remains arriving after her son, James I, ordered her first grave be dug up. Now the Dean of Westminster is pushing a multimillion pound scheme for a new crown-shaped structure over the altar in time for the Queen's diamond jubilee - an unfortunately divisive plan because it stresses the monarchy over the Abbey's role in the broader national story. Every generation wants to leave its own imprint, and history never ends. But the abbey already has more than its fair share of history, and would be better left alone.